Worker IT strategy vital as winter weather grips the country

Thursday 02 December 2010

There’s never any shortage of practical advice to help us deal with the worst of the winter weather.

Everything from keeping a shovel and blankets in the boot of the car in case you’re trapped by a snowstorm, to ensuring your pipework is protected from frost.

But for businesses the priority has to lie in taking steps to ensure their work doesn’t come to a standstill when the traffic does.

The sustained wintry conditions last year took their economic toll as workers were snowbound at home – estimates of the daily costs of employee absenteeism from work ranged from £250million to in excess of £1billion. And this week, the north of Scotland is once again in the grip of another icy blast.

“Businesses commonly have plans in place to deal with a variety of scenarios, such as catastrophic systems failures, that could hit their operations,” says Rob Hamilton, director of specialist Aberdeen IT company Dynamic Edge Solutions.

“The experiences of last winter have brought home to many that they need to have contingencies in place to deal with the more routine winter-related problems that could impact on business continuity.

“We’re seeing a marked increase in the number of inquiries from companies that want to assess their options for home working and enabling remote access to emails, data and files.”

Rob’s firm delivers state-of-the-art cloud-computing solutions which give desktop PC and mobile computing users access to their software and data securely via the internet, meaning they can work from anywhere, at any time, using the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard suite (BPOS).

“The options for businesses to providing remote working facilities for their personnel are growing all the time, so they can choose to tailor the systems to suit their needs.

“Companies don’t need to leave themselves vulnerable to the operational damage a wintry blast can cause – and indeed the adoption of remote working practices greatly enhances their scope to take a far more flexible approach to service delivery throughout the year.

“Given the availability of ever more elaborate video-conferencing facilities, there’s really no issue that can’t be overcome. In effect, you may be at home but you’re essentially sitting at your desk – everything can be available to you, and everyone you need to communicate with is within reach.”

Next generation IT company Dynamic Edge provides traditional IT support as well as cloud computing solutions to businesses. Earlier this year it attained Microsoft Gold Partner status – the highest level of partner certification – with six competencies.

The company was also shortlisted in the Best Use of ICT (Information Communication Technology) at the 2010 Northern Star Business Awards, the flagship event of the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce.

Full transcript can be found on the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce website - http://www.agcc.co.uk/worker-it-strategy-vital-as-winter-weather-grips-the-country/